House Republicans recently unveiled a plan to undermine Sen. Warren’s consumer protection agency, slash oversight of the biggest financial institutions, and repeal the Volcker Rule blocking banks from gambling with taxpayer-insured deposits – all essential reforms that CREDO members fought to make a reality.1

Conservatives are already calling it a blueprint for what the party wants to achieve over the next few years. It's not just the House – Sen. Richard Shelby, head of the Senate Banking Committee who put forward a Wall Street wishlist known as the “Shelby Bill” last spring, also recently declared he would renew his push to undermine consumer protections.2

Republicans are making no secret about their desire to shape the debate during an election year and set the agenda for next fall, yet some members of the Wall Street wing of the Senate Democratic caucus have long talked about compromise.3,4Not only do we need Democratic leaders to recommit to blocking these efforts right away, we need to make it clear that no Democrat should give “bipartisan” cover to a giveaway to the biggest banks.

Last holiday season, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, our friends in the progressive movement, and CREDO members like you fought off Republican attempts to add Wall Street handouts to must-pass spending legislation. But recent events make it clear that our work isn’t done yet. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, created by Sen. Warren, has been under constant attack. Sen. Shelby has insisted that he hasn’t given up on rolling back Dodd-Frank, and House Republicans have just unveiled proposals that would gut the most important reforms.5,6

Republicans are justifying these attacks with an incessantly repeated, dubious claim that they will help smaller community banks. But this is clearly a thinly veiled political cover for a proposal that would mostly help Wall Street titans.7 They have proposed exempting big non-bank financial companies from rules, even though the insurance company AIG was a huge part of the last crisis.8 Republican plans also add an absurd and cumbersome process before watchdogs can put forward new rules, add new loopholes for the biggest banks to avoid reform, and more.

Last spring, our friends at Americans for Financial Reform flagged the Shelby Bill as “a major rollback of financial reform,” and this latest push is more of the same.10 Democratic support for any of these attacks would not only put us all at risk of another Wall Street meltdown, it would give Republicans bipartisan cover for giveaways to the big banks.

No Democrat should spend a split second considering supporting these changes. Nor should they attempt to negotiate with Republicans who have made their true agenda so clear. We need to show Senate Democrats that no amount of arm-twisting from Wall Street lobbyists can change this simple fact: Rolling back Wall Street reform is simply unacceptable.